Acolyte of the Pleasure Goddess Ch. 05-06

But there was another aspect to Vael's discomfort towards her. Something about the way he moved around her, the way he watched her. Not with the look of desire she was used to (the look Brynwa was probably casting her way from behind her in the tunnel — a quick glance over her shoulder confirmed this) but something more abject. The paladin was tense around her, like moving around a fragile ornament. She didn't know what to make of that. So, she just continued to stare at how his muscles shifted beneath his bronze skin and began to feel a little damp in between her legs. The dungeon air was musty and close about her skin. Just like the Mausoleum beneath the Temple, the atmosphere made her feel especially naked.

Behind her, she saw as she half-turned, the fighter was grinning manically.

"I'm starting to think that this is insane," Brynwa whispered.

"You're an adventurer," Delyssa replied. "You're already insane."

The fighter's grin broadened.

"I see an opening ahead," Cenhera called softly back. The tunling dropped into a crouch, then immediately straightened. It took Delyssa a moment to realize that her illusions were likely visual only, and so Cenhera just had the experience of suddenly exposing herself to the open air. She had to stifle a smile. More hesitantly, Cenhera crouched once more and snuck forward, around a bend in the tunnel. The others followed quietly, the rustle of armor and shifting packs of gear replaced by the near silence of bare feet on bare stone.

The tunnel curved left and downwards, and the party's already cautious pace slowed as they were forced to crab-walk down the smooth, rounded floor of the passage. After what Delyssa guessed was about thirty paces of arc, the passage opened into another chamber, the same brick walls as in previous rooms, but with a lower ceiling. The tunnel deposited them about an arm's length from the floor. The far wall on the other side of the chamber was the only part of the room uninterrupted by other identical bores, marking where the anti-basilisk made its other entrances.

The wall ahead was covered in an ornate tableau, more like a religious carving than the historical scenes from the first chamber. A life-sized figure of Saint Mesembre occupied the very center of the wall, her arms to either side, palms facing out and her feet were pointed downwards as if she were floating. She was covered in fine jewelry and nothing else. Seeing her in greater detail, Delyssa became sure that the vision she had was of this woman. The face, her hair, it was all identical. The metal chest-piece she had seen was rendered here in stone, two independent swoops that curled around her breasts, centering the exposed nipples. There were other ornaments decorating the figure: bracelets and anklets, earrings and toe rings. She wore a jeweled piece of metal in her navel, and her hips were adorned with a thin garland with dozens of short tassels that hung to about her mid-thigh — enough so as to give the appearance of clothing, but not enough to actually obscure her sex. Even the curls of her pubic hair were carefully rendered in the carving.

"I've never seen a religious figure so... ostentatious," Vael said, stopping before the carving.

"Is she a religious figure? Or a goddess?" Cenhera asked. "This seems like a place of worship."

"Who builds a tomb for a god," Brynwa mumbled.

"I'm not sure she's really a saint," Cenhera continued. "She doesn't have a holy symbol."

Delyssa gasped, and Vael straightened, slowly turning towards the acolyte.

"Perhaps," he said, "her body is her holy symbol."

"She's a priestess of Shevlana!" she said, her voice still a whisper.

"Yeah?" Brynwa said, sounding confused. "I thought that was obvious, from how naked she was."

"No, you don't understand. We're taught all about the history of our cult, going back ages. We're taught about who each of our saints were, when they lived, how they died. The reliefs back in the first chamber showed armies being led by this woman, clerics of other gods following her. Who was she that I've never heard of her before? Why was she forgotten?"

"Forgotten, or kept secret?" Cenhera said darkly. Delyssa shuddered.

"I don't like either one of those options," she said.

"How come this carving isn't full of holes like everything else?" Brynwa asked.

"It could be another enchantment," Cenhera said. "If this was the most important carving, then maybe whoever built this place wanted it to withstand the sands of time. And stone-eating monsters."

"I think we can come back to this later," said Vael. "Once the beast is dead."

The party turned away from the carving and towards the shadows of the rest of the chamber. Delyssa stood and stared at the face of Saint Mesembre. The figure was looking down at the acolyte, her fixed expression one of a coy smile. Delyssa turned and followed her companions, far more apprehensive than when she entered the room.

The low-ceiling room turned a corner in an L shape, after which were even more anti-basilisk tunnels, at various heights in the walls, some sunk into the floor.

"What's our next plan?" Delyssa asked as she caught up with the group. "We're not going to explore all of these, right?"

"No way," said Cenhera, peering down one of tunnels. "For one, we don't know how many of these interconnect, or are dead ends. It'd be incredibly easy to get lost. Two, it'd take us forever to search all of these, and my illusion isn't going to last forever. I want to get this over with as soon as we can. I don't want to end up naked like the rest of you."

"I think it's going to be a hard beast to corner," said Brynwa. "If it feels too threatened, it can just tunnel through the floor and get away. Damn! This thing is annoying."

"So we should find a way to lure it to us, then," Vael said. "Cenhera, do you know anything more about this creature? What it senses, or how it hunts?"

Cenhera ran her thin fingers through the straw-colored mess of her hair. "It doesn't use eyesight much, I don't think. If this huge monster is anything like the little ones we dealt with at home, it mostly uses smell, vibrations, and taste. It's like a snake, it tastes the scents on the air, I think."

"How does it find prey through solid stone?" Delyssa asked.

Cenhera gestured at the walls of the chamber, with the array of dozens of randomly-placed, intersecting holes. "It looks like it just guesses. It can probably sense big vibrations, but from what I see it seems that it just cuts through the ground randomly until it finds something to eat."

Delyssa squatted next to the tunling, who partially turned away from the naked acolyte. With just a mote of embarrassment, she could feel the lips of her vulva parting as she squatted, and hoped that none of her companions noticed how slick she was.

"Are your illusions only of sound of sight?" she asked. "Or would it be possible to do an illusion or a scent as well?"

Cenhera shook her head. "Like making a big, yummy scent of whatever it hunts? That's a good idea, but the spells I know won't cover enough area for it to be really effective. It would have to be close by anyway."

"Still, that's not a bad suggestion," Vael said thoughtfully. "We could get some of the dried meats from my rations and smoke them. That might be able to draw it out."

"That's a delicious plan," said Brynwa. "I'm very much in favor of this plan."

"Why don't you and Cenhera go back and gather the food up?" Vael said to the fighter.

"What, you don't trust me and Delyssa to stay here?" Brynwa laughed.

"No, I do not," the paladin said firmly. He glanced down at Delyssa and his expression softened. "Sorry."

"It's fine," she quickly said. "I want to look more at that carving anyway."

The rest of the party nodded. Cenhera and Brynwa clambered back into the tunnel they entered from, and Vael accompanied Delyssa back to standing in front of the huge relief of Saint Mesembre. She tried to focus on the details of the figure, trying to find some clue as to the woman's place in her religion. She found it difficult to focus. Vael was standing in the corner, his sword at the ready, looking out over the rest of the room. He loomed in her peripheral vision, and all her attempts to concentrate on the tableau before her were drawn back to him.

His silver shield was still strapped to his left arm, but at the moment it hung to his side, exposing much of his torso. He was pointedly avoiding looking at Delyssa, and she found she could easily sneak glances to study the paladin. When she encountered him bathing in the river, though they had been equally naked then, there was something about the environment of the dungeon that made this far more erotic. His partial nudity, and her own complete nakedness sent a shiver up her spine. She found her attention kept being drawn away from the mysterious saint and towards the exposed sides of his buttocks, the hair that led from his navel down to his groin, and the bulge of his genitals against the tightly wrapped fabric of his loincloth.

She found that her skin was tingling, as if she was just about to start sweating, and the ache of her sex was increasing, that itch of desire to be parted. She pictured herself being pinned to wall by Vael, his freed cock pressing into her as he roughly kissed her. She shook her head. Now was not the time to be having these lusty thoughts. Besides, the paladin was certainly chaste, Delyssa thought. She found herself biting her lip regardless.

She shook her head and focused once more on the carving in front of her. There were other figures and objects scattered around Mesembre, along with bits of texts in the same elder language as before. She leaned in towards the stone: there was a small line of text at the bottom of the carving near the floor. "Our Lady of Peace, Saint Mesembre, adorned with the Raiment of Amity" Delyssa translated.

From the tunnel behind her, she could hear Brynwa's approaching footsteps. She peered closer at the rest of the wall. There were other figures she did not recognize. Some, she could tell, were other naked priestesses of Shevlana, depicted frozen in the familiar motions of ritual dances. Others were clearly clerics of some other gods, the same figures from those scenes in the first chamber of the dungeon. Men and women clad in robes or armor, wielding their holy symbols. Delyssa had never seen such a variety of religions depicted together, and centering her own cult. The cult of Shevlana was notable, but mainly for its reputation, rather than the breadth of its following. Besides the main temple in Gra'tan, there were small enclaves and cloisters here and there across the land, but not nearly as much as some other deities. The worship of love and pleasure was far less ubiquitous than its presence, she knew.

Between the smaller figures there were other miscellaneous objects that filled the carving. Weapons, mainly swords and spears, were depicted shattering against Mesembre and the other priestesses and priests.

Delyssa followed the carving towards the corner of the room, closer to Vael, who shifted uncomfortably as she neared.

"Look at this," she said, and flushed hotly as Vael stepped up beside her, intensely aware of the heat of his body next to hers. She pointed at the carving. There was a small seam that ran vertically up from the ground about two arms' lengths from the corner of the adjacent wall and went up well over head height before turning and into the corner.

"Congratulations," Vael said, causing a stir inside of her. The paladin finally looked down and met her eyes, smiling. "You've found your first secret door." He traced his finger up along the seam before trying his weight against the stone to no effect.

"Now how do we open it?" he said. "Usually there's a button or a switch, or a pass-phrase written down somewhere..."

Delyssa also tried to press against the wall and found it to be immovable stone. She trailed her hand back along the rest of the carving.

"Alright, we bundled up all of the meats from our packs," Brynwa said from behind as the fighter and Cenhera emerged from the tunnel. As the pair entered the room, Delyssa stopped before the engraving of Mesembre and looked up at the saint. She suddenly recalled the way she looked in her vision, the one arm extended out in invitation. Carefully, she reached out and touched the Mesembre's hand.

The hidden door shuddered in the wall, a cloud of dust billowing outward. With a low, rumbling sound as stone grated against stone, the slab sank into the ground, revealing another dark chamber within.

"Damn," said Brynwa. "What'd I miss?"

Vael grinned and glanced over to the fighter. "It seems our new healer has a knack for—" he stopped, his eyes widening as he gave a shout. Delyssa and the rest of the party whirled around. Standing at the far end of the chamber, one claw half-raised like a cat caught sneaking, was the anti-basilisk. There was a tense, drawn-out moment in which everything was still. Then both the monster and the party erupted into action, Vael and Brynwa pushing past Delyssa to face the creature, while Cenhera dropped into another crouch, black, arcane smoke billowing about the edge of her dagger.

Whatever arguments the others made for keeping their armor for this fight evaporated, as the anti-basilisk immediately opened its central eye, the beam completely engulfing the clustered party. The metal ends of Delyssa's quarterstaff melted away, and in front of her Vael's loincloth was reduced to nothing and fell away, revealing the tight, muscular cleft of his ass.

Ultimately, the fight lasted longer than the one with the manticore, but not by much.

The anti-basilisk became a flurry of blows, but most of these were deflected by Vael, who drew its attention. The fact that it was unable to melt the enchanted sword and shield he held seemed to enrage it, and he was hard-pressed to weather its attacks. Brynwa, in the meantime, had maneuvered around to the creature's hind, and engaged in almost an independent duel with the creature's tail. Cenhera slipped between its claws and cut away with her dagger, slicing at its underbelly and tendons. Even Delyssa found herself nearing the creature but could not find an opportunity to strike at it with her staff. At one point, there was a brief moment where it turned to look at her, the others pushed back a step, and she pulled her staff back to attack it, her muscles tensed. There was something in its eye that made her hesitate, some recognition in it that she was not a threat. She made no effort to attack it.

Then Vael plunged his sword deep into its eye, and that was the end of the fight.

They were all sheathed in sweat, covered in small cuts from its claws and spaded tail and scrapes from rolling and sliding across the stone floor.

Delyssa stood, breathing heavily, her breasts heaving. "Alright, well done everyone. Who needs healing?"

Three hands raised into the air. With the fight finally over, Vael was covering his penis with his shield, his sword still lodged in the dead monster. Brynwa stood proudly, a sheen built up across the fighter's skin. A horizontal slice from a claw was slashed across the warrior's shoulder but wasn't deep. Cenhera looked battered, her hair tousled, but was fine beyond a series of rough scrapes from her bare skin tumbling over the floor's brickwork. Her illusory clothing persisted, though Delyssa thought she could make out the hint of the tunling's form beneath it, the stocky curves hazily indistinct.

With what she hoped was a semblance of professionalism, Delyssa moved from one campaigner to the next, tapping into the divine energy that flowed through her and releasing it in warm pulses that stitched together their wounds, and healed their bruises and scrapes.

When she was done with Vael's injury, a wince-inducing gash along his lower back, she stood back up quickly, and they both looked away from one another's naked bodies. She was unused to this bashfulness, and she decided that shame was contagious. In defiance of this brief moment of modesty, she stood with her legs a little wider apart, causing Brynwa to raise her eyebrows and stare.

"Right," Vael said. "Time to get back to our gear and get dressed."

Delyssa's heart fell for a moment, having momentarily forgotten that the paladin's clothes were still safely stowed in the previous chamber, not erased like her own.

"You go get the gear," Brynwa said. "Me and Delyssa are going to check out this secret chamber."

"You're not going to get dressed?" Cenhera said, sounding skeptical.

"Dressed in what? Most everything got disintegrated when we fought it the first time."

"Well, surely there's a cloak or rags you could wear..."

"Bite me. That chamber reeks of 'treasure room' to me, and I want first dibs on the loot."

"Hold on," Vael interrupted. "We know that this is the tomb of a priestess of Shevlana. I am uncertain if we have the right to claim whatever treasure is here for ourselves."

"Fuck that," said Brynwa, though the warrior sounded a little unsure. The group looked to Delyssa, and she realized after a moment that they were looking for her permission. She thought for a moment.

"We're not a very material religion," she said eventually. "But part of the bargain that we have with the Campaigner's Guild is that we lay claim to any objects with religious significance. I'll assert that claim over anything like scrolls, books, or tablets. Or sacred vestments," she added, remembering the chest-piece Mesembre was wearing in her vision. "Marked and unmarked coins, gems, jewels — anything of strictly monetary value I'll leave to you."

Brynwa whooped and started for the entrance to the secret chamber. Cenhera shifted uneasily, obviously weighing between going to get dressed in her real clothes and sorting through potential piles of treasure before the fighter could get to them. After a moment's hesitation the tunling cursed under her breath and followed the warrior.

"Well, paladin?" Delyssa said, turning towards Vael. "Surely you can wait just a little while? Is this really so discomforting to you?" gestured down at her naked body, and saw that Vael looked her over quickly before glancing away.

"It is one thing to be naked while bathing," he murmured. "It is quite another delight so freely in one's body."

"Why wouldn't we delight in our bodies?" said Delyssa, puzzled.

Vael was quiet. He moved past her and towards the body of the anti-basilisk, and with a grunt pulled his sword out from the giant eyeball where it had been stuck. He flicked it, splattering goo and gore against the wall, and turned back to her.

"Not everyone's body is an instrument of pleasure, Delyssa." He said, and stalked back to the original tunnel entrance and towards the first chamber.

Delyssa watched him go, not in lust as before. She began to understand the source of his aura of shame: it did not stem from prudishness but, she realized, from fear. She sighed. She didn't know how to fix that. There were no spells to mend that sort of wound, at least not any that she knew of. Even if there were, she doubted that he would accept them. It seems that pride is often a shield for shame, she thought.

From inside the secret chamber there came a brilliant glow of dancing firelight, spilling out into the rest of the room. "Delyssa?" she heard Cenhera call from within. "You might want to come take a look at this."

She had only known Vael for a very short time, but the idea that she could not easily help him through whatever troubles he had sent a pang through her chest. She shook her head and entered the chamber.

Chapter 6

Brynwa and Cenhera had lit a few more torches and scattered them about the chamber, and it took a moment for Delyssa's eyes to adjust to the comparative brightness within the room. When she finally focused on her surroundings, she let out a gasp. The torchlight was reflecting off of piles of coins and gems, a glittering dazzle that sent a soft, scintillating pattern across the walls. It was more wealth than Delyssa had ever seen.